Monday, July 17, 2006

Movielink to allow DVD burning...YouTube makes a splash in Sun Valley

According to the LA Times, Movielink is on the very of announcing a new feature: the ability to burn a DVD of the movie you've just downloaded. Technology from Sonic Solutions will allegedly prevent would-be pirates from then making multiple dupes of that movie. (Here's the Wall Street Journal piece for you subscribers.) This is the first sign to me that Movielink is becoming a real business, and delivering something that consumers might want.

YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley made a big splash at last week's Sun Valley gathering of media titans, mostly for being the youngest guest there (29). But also for having a Web site that now attracts more traffic than any of the TV networks' sites, serving up 100 million videos a day. The LA Times says that many in attendance, though, were wondering whether YouTube is really becoming one of the Web's "anchor tenants" -- like a Google, Yahoo, eBay or MySpace -- or simply a passing fad. I wonder about this, too: YouTube's biggest challenge now is keeping its giant audience supplied with stuff that they want to watch. I think that the audience's expectations for Web video are going to slowly rise. Pointless and stupid is fun...for a while. If you're old enough, you may recall that `America's Funniest Home Videos' was once the most popular show on television.

2 Comments:

Most of the videos on YouTube are lite fare, but every once in a while I'll catch something like 'war' and realize that user submitted video could possibly bring war home in a way TV anchors never will. If Vietnam had nightly news, Iraq 1 had 24x7 CNN, Iraq 2 had embedded reporters, then I think this conflict/war in Lebanon & Israel could be the war we see through the eyes of user submitted videos. If that catches on, the next logical step would be staged propaganda videos with that user-submitted look. Technology creates as many problems as it solves.

Here's the link to 'war' on YouTube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=wFlYw9awR5o

About

CinemaTech focuses on how new technologies are changing cinema - the way movies get made, discovered, marketed, distributed, shown, and seen. (With occasional forays into other parts of the entertainment economy.) You can also follow CinemaTech on Twitter (@ctechblog).

About Me

For about the last ten years, I've been writing about innovation for publications like the Boston Globe, the New York Times, Wired, Variety, Fast Company, the Hollywood Reporter, Salon.com, BusinessWeek, and Newsweek.
I helped start (and continue to help run) three conferences: Future Forward, the Nantucket Conference on Entrepreneurship & Innovation, and Convergence: The Life Sciences Leaders Forum. I also often speak and moderate at other people's conferences, and serve as a commentator on TV and radio. (Which beats actual work.)
You can reach me by e-mailing kirsner - at- pobox.com. My personal site is www.scottkirsner.com.